What does the A.R.E. archive actually contain about the Hall of Records and the Sphinx, including full citations?
Executive summary
The Edgar Cayce Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) archive centers on Cayce’s trance “readings” describing a so‑called Hall of Records associated with the Great Sphinx, and A.R.E.’s published research restates those readings, links them to Egyptian textual phrasing and star charts, and highlights specific reading passages about a sealed chamber under or near the Sphinx [1]. Independent archaeological and geophysical sources cited alongside A.R.E.’s materials show anomalies and hypotheses but no excavation or peer‑reviewed evidence that corroborates a buried library beneath the Sphinx [2] [3] [4].
1. Origins: Cayce’s readings and the Hall of Records narrative
A.R.E.’s archive is rooted in the Edgar Cayce corpus—trance readings in which Cayce described an Atlantean‑era origin for advanced knowledge and a repository of records that would be found beneath or adjacent to the Sphinx; the readings include specific locational language (for example, an entrance “between the paws” and a sealed room not to be opened until a future “time”) and give a chronology (Cayce’s dating of priests like Ra‑Ta to ~10,500 BC) that A.R.E. presents as the primary source for the Hall of Records claim [1] [5].
2. What the A.R.E. archive actually contains
A.R.E.’s publicly accessible materials compile and interpret Cayce readings, noting linguistic parallels (the word “mystery” in Egyptian funerary texts) and astronomical correlations drawn by Cayce followers between star charts and the Sphinx’s orientation; A.R.E. describes specific reading numbers and quotes passages about the sealed chamber and the Sphinx as guardian, and frames these as the basis for targeted research and search efforts [1]. The A.R.E. write‑up emphasizes textual comparison and astronomical interpretation rather than reporting new archaeological fieldwork in the archive entry itself [1].
3. What A.R.E. does not provide in the archive (and limits of the claim)
A.R.E.’s page does not present newly excavated artifacts, peer‑reviewed archaeological reports, or controlled stratigraphic data proving a man‑made Hall of Records under the Sphinx; the organization’s materials are interpretive and documentary of Cayce’s readings rather than primary archaeological proof [1]. Independent surveys and syntheses cited in public domain sources report geophysical anomalies and possible voids beneath or near the Sphinx but stress that anomalies are inconclusive and not verified as man‑made libraries, and that no substantial archaeological evidence for a Hall of Records has been demonstrated [2] [3] [4].
4. Scientific and popular responses recorded outside A.R.E.
Scholarly and investigative sites note that the Hall of Records concept has been conflated with other fringe hypotheses—water‑erosion dating, Orion correlation models and Atlantis narratives—and that geophysical studies (resistivity, ground‑penetrating radar) have produced anomalies that remain unexplained but not evidence of papyrus archives; commentators and survey teams have recommended more detailed work while cautioning against treating anomalies as confirmation of Cayce’s claims [6] [2] [4] [3].
5. Motivations, framing and how to read A.R.E.’s archive
A.R.E.’s archive functions as a religious‑movement repository: it preserves, contextualizes and advocates Cayce’s readings, drawing lines between those readings and ancient texts or astronomical motifs to bolster the plausibility of the Hall story, rather than claiming a conventional archaeological discovery [1]. Alternative viewpoints—from mainstream Egyptology and from geophysical surveyors—are explicit in outside reporting: they acknowledge mysterious subsurface anomalies but insist the Hall remains hypothetical and unproven [2] [4].
6. Bottom line
The A.R.E. archive contains the Cayce readings, interpretive essays linking those readings to Egyptian textual motifs and star correspondences, and public advocacy for the Hall‑of‑Records hypothesis with citations to specific reading passages about sealed chambers and Sphinx guardianship; it does not contain archaeological validation or recovered artifacts, and independent sources consistently describe geological anomalies as intriguing but unverified with respect to a buried library [1] [2] [3] [4].